The timeline this fixes

Set the petition against the rest of the record and the sequence is clear, and it is longer than the coverage suggests.

December 2024: an NJ 101.5 opinion segment predicted increases of $200 to $500 a month and alleged that architectural and engineering firms lobbying in Trenton stood to benefit from the mandatory-inspection regime. Both figures were a host's estimate, not reporting, and we found no basis for the lobbying allegation.

October 2025: an advocate told the Ocean County Board of Commissioners that senior communities were seeing $300-to-$400 increases.

May 2026: NJ.com reported a named community and a named figure — $350 to $624.77.

June 2026: two bills introduced.

So the interval between an organised petition and a legislative response was roughly twenty-one months, and what closed it was not the petition. It was a single number attached to a single household.

What the petition asked for, versus what got filed

This comparison is the useful part, because the petition named three things and the pending bills address them unevenly.

On definition — which buildings and associations are covered — the bills deliver. A318 and S146 would limit the law to buildings of three stories or more; S4365 would let municipalities exempt duplexes and three-townhouse rows; S3406 would let associations apply to DCA for a reduction based on risk-mitigating features.

On timing, partially. A318 would double the reserve catch-up window to twenty fiscal years; A5306 and S4508 would add a 35-year funding plan option.

On process — how an association complies — almost nothing. The requirement that a study be prepared or overseen by a credentialed reserve specialist or a licensed engineer or architect, conforming to national standards, is untouched by every pending bill. That is the requirement the petition's "independent engineer" complaint is aimed at, and no filed bill addresses it.

Why that gap probably persists

Because it is the part of the statute with the clearest post-Surfside rationale. Loosening who may prepare a reserve study is a harder argument to make in public than loosening how long an association has to fund one.

It is also the requirement DCA has restated most firmly. Asked whether board members can prepare the study themselves, the Department's answer is a flat "No," followed by the statutory text.

Where the petition stands

We found no evidence that it was formally presented to any legislator or committee, and the signature count is as displayed and will drift. Its significance is as a date stamp: it establishes that New Jersey condominium and co-op owners were organised against the reserve mandate in September 2024, eight months after the statute took effect and eleven months before the amendment that was supposed to soften it.

A separate petition, "Save NJ Senior Housing," organised out of Toms River, opposes the pending age-restricted resale bills — a different fight, in many of the same communities.